Analysis of strengthening procedures of reinforced concrete highway bridges: a brazilian case study

Abstract The Brazilian federal highway system is largely made up of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges built prior to 1984. Thus, these bridges have incompatible geometry and loading carrying capacity with nowadays traffic. In this scenario, the goal of this investigation was the evaluation of the widening and strengthening procedures used in these RC bridges. The study also includes comparing their performance with the respective new bridges built next to them, which received new highway lanes. This comparison is adequate, considering that, both bridges are inserted in the same environment, are subjected to the same traffic characteristics and have similar spans and structural systems. The results obtained allow us to know the effectiveness of the widening and strengthening interventions carried out, from the point of view of durability, contributing to the improvement of future rehabilitation design for reinforced concrete highway bridges.